Trump Taps AccuWeather CEO to Head NOAA

President Donald
Trump announced his nomination of Barry Myers, the CEO of private weather company AccuWeather, to lead the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country's foremost scientific agency for oceanic and climate research.

The White House praised Myers and his company for its "highest grossing years, and its largest global web and mobile audience growth. He is one of the world's leading authorities on the use of weather information."

But critics worry about the wealthy businessman's potential conflicts of interest, especially his support of a highly criticized bill that would have shifted taxpayer-funded National Weather Service data to for-profit companies. Companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel.

Basically, [AccuWeather's] business model is to take NOAA data and products on weather, developed with taxpayer dollars, and deliver them to the public in a proprietary form that customers want. [Myers] has been a strong
advocate against NOAA having the capability to provide such products directly to the public, hence the rather boring form of NOAA forecasts which is interpreted and commoditized by companies like AccuWeather and many others.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who now serves as the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, successfully blocked the bill from consideration.

"We've had ten hurricanesin ten weeks, I want to make absolutely sure any NOAA administrator will put the public first in delivering freely available weather forecasts," Nelson said in a statement provided to EcoWatch. "We can't afford to have someone in this position that might be tempted to feather their own nest by privatizing the National Weather Service."

While it's true that Myers knows the weather, NOAA has other crucial roles besides issuing daily forecasts. The agency produces important climate change research and manages the nation's fisheries.

Opponents say that Myers, who has degrees in business and law, is unlike previous NOAA administrators who have prominent scientific backgrounds. For instance, President Obama's NOAA administrator Kathryn Sullivan is a geologist and former NASA astronaut.

"If confirmed, it will be Myers' duty to champion all facets of NOAA from the deep sea to outer space,"
Ocean Conservancy CEO Janis Searles Jones said in a statement. "Myers has had nearly forty years in the private weather industry but the stakes at NOAA are different."

"He doesn't know much about climate or oceans," Cliff Mass, a meteorologist at the University of Washington, told Wired. "That is going to be a problem. He doesn't have scientific credibility."

Trump's 2018 budget proposal cuts NOAA's budget by 17 percent to $4.8 billion, including cutting $230 million for grant and education programs. According to Wired, "Mass and others argue that cutting basic research into the oceans, atmosphere, and climate—the taxpayer-funded research done by NOAA and NWS—will lead to less reliable weather modeling by private firms like AccuWeather as well as federal models like the Global Forecast System."

However, those who support Myers say that his business background is a plus.

"Myers will bring that Big Data acumen to NOAA and likely accelerate a process that has slowly been underway: more private-sector collaboration with satellite data, weather models and other information services," Ryan Maue, a weather model product developer for Weather.us, told the
Associated Press.

Ray Ban, co-chair of Weather Coalition, also told the Washington Post, "In an Administration that places high value on business acumen, Barry brings a strong track record in growing one of the most successful companies in the weather industry."

If confirmed, Myers at least has a well-respected No. 2 for support. The Senate has already confirmed former Navy oceanographer Rear. Adm. Timothy Gallaudet as assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere. Gallaudet has master's and doctoral degrees in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California.

Finally, David Titley, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University, in State College and a former chief operating officer for NOAA, wondered about Myers' role in an administration
hostile towards climate action.

How is he "going to reconcile the overwhelming and ever-strengthening evidence of climate change and its direct relationship to man-made emissions, and statements from the White House and cabinet secretaries that ignore that link?" Titley noted to
Science.

Myers' position on climate change is unclear. "We have said to our scientists, if you have special skills in climate, if you want to voice your professional opinion, our platforms are open to you," Myers told the Wall Street Journal in 2014. "We do not want people getting involved in the political aspect of this debate."

Sixteen-year-old climate action leader Greta Thunberg stood alongside European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker Thursday in Brussels as he indicated—after weeks of climate strikes around the world inspired by the Swedish teenager—that the European Union has heard the demands of young people and pledged more than $1 trillion over the next seven years to address the crisis of a rapidly heating planet.

In the financial period beginning in 2021, Juncker said, the EU will devote a quarter of its budget to solving the crisis.

A new study reveals the health risks posed by the making, use and disposal of plastics. Jeffrey Phelps / Getty Images

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But a first-of-its-kind study released Tuesday sets out to change that. The study, Plastic & Health: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, is especially groundbreaking because it looks at the health impacts of every stage in the life cycle of plastics, from the extraction of the fossil fuels that make them to their permanence in the environment. While previous studies have focused on particular products, manufacturing processes or moments in the creation and use of plastics, this study shows that plastics pose serious health risks at every stage in their production, use and disposal.